Ragnarock for the Scarred Lands

[Nightfall]

*is ignoring some comments...*

In any event folks, to db, I don't own the rights to the Scarred Lands.

Rue, I'll consider that possibility...but we'll see. (I got a lot on my plate working a 6:00 am to 2:30 (now 2 more hours for four days a week while Christmas approachs), job.)

Hornsaw, I agree is a great book ESPECIALLY if you enjoy a place where you can campaign in a old forest much like Mirkwood.

Anyway that's my comments for now.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

The only reason Scarred Lands products aren't being produced anymore is because Nightfall didn't do a good enough job hyping it.


Just kidding.

I think the setting is/was great ( and probably wouldn't have gotten into it if not for Nightfall ), but the publishers strategy did have a few major flaws.

1) Quantity over quality. There was a point there were multiple books for SL were being published evey month. Art kept getting worse. Writing was hit or miss, sometimes even within the same book.

2) Lack of a good place to start. A book such as the FRCS, or MIDNIGHT core book was really needed to help introduce new players and DM's.

3) (The other points are, of course, my own personal view, but this one even more so ) Expanding geographically too soon. Ghelspad still had major areas that needed expanding before we needed a monster book for a third continent.

Even if SSS did a better job at the above the setting would probably not have lasted much longer. Settings just have a way of coming and going. It was good run, and I had fun DMing it. My nest CXampaign will be elsewhere, but not due to the fact that there have been no recent products - just time for a change.

Books I'd recommend even if you are not playing in SL ( although they are more valuable if you do! )

Hallowfast: City run by necromancers where normal ( good ) people live. A great look at another possible paradigm through necromantic magic

Echo's of the Past; Slarecian Legacy : Great crunch for items and traps - heavily Psionic influence, but could just as easily be used with Chaositech

Burok Torn - A fully detailed Dwarven city!

Other books that were in my second teir of interest:

Hornsaw, forest of Blood

City of Mithril

Blood Sea

The cosmology book was fairly decent too ( forgot what it was called ), but many planes could be used in much the same way one might use the content from Malhavoc's new planar book...

Bye Bye Scarn!

 

[Nightfall]

Biggie,

Thanks and I appreciate everyone that feels I influenced their decision in terms of buying SL stuff.

(Just wonder if I'll ever get "Greatest Scarred Lands Sage" T-shirt now...)

(And yes maybe that did factor in somewhat, why it died. I stopped promoting it...or not. Maybe you people just need to be less tight with your money! )

 

[der_kluge]

Turns out, Nightfall was the only guy playing in SL. Who knew!?

I'm just teasing you, Nightfall.


Look on the bright side - Bluffside is making a comeback!

 

[Jeff Wilder]

So, what books would you recommend?

My favorite of the setting books are Hallowfaust, Burok Torn, and Calastia. What the three have in common is setting certain preconceptions on their ears. In Hallowfaust, the necromancers are the good guys, not the villains. In Burok Torn, the dwarves -- though good people -- bitterly fight another race (dark elves) based on a lie perpetuated by the dwarves themselves. In Calastia, the writers did an amazing job showing how a Lawful Evil monarch can create a safe and prosperous society, to the extent that he is actually and openly admired, garnering extreme loyalty from the general population.

Great stuff.

Unlike what others have said, Hornsaw is my least favorite of all the Scarred Lands books, Penumbral Pentagon notwithstanding. Not only is there nothing particularly creative about the setting, it's just badly written. Pick a half-page at random from any of the other three books I mentioned, and compare it to a half-page from Hornsaw, and I guarantee you'll see what I mean. Seriously, I love the Scarred Lands, and Hornsaw is the only product I wouldn't buy again.

 

[ruemere]

I looked into my local gaming store today, and they actually had this. What's so good about it?

And they also had the book about Calastia. What's your opinion on this one?

Disclaimer: I was one of the few people who liked Penumbral Pentagon - Bruce Baugh filled in blanks giving out practically ready to run module complete with statblocks, fighting tactics, locales and twisted philosophy... the kind of ideology people find their lives worth sacrificing for.

Admittedly, PP failed to improve obvious flaws of Penumbral Pentagon organization (weak prestige class, a few mechanical issues, a heresy a bit too obvious). However these weak points are easily fixed. And there is a problem with some of the maps being a bit difficult to read (still, I could read with once a looked at the for some time).

7/10.

HORNSAW: FOREST OF BLOOD
The good: you get to play in an eeevil forest. The elves are tattooed and insane, there are bad, bad necromancers about, mutated monstrosities left after the war and a major center of druid worship.

The bad: some items are not to everyone's liking (double scythe, anyone?), too many times authors skip over important aspects (not enough information on manifestations of elven insanity... in other words, we are told they are different, but the differences are not really fleshed out).

The ugly: And as usual, one can have problems with prestige class design (fortunately, Hornsaw fares better than some of more recent products).

6/10.

CALASTIA: THRONE OF THE BLACK DRAGON
The good: it's a Roman empire with a monarchy instead of republic, i.e. an evil kingdom bent on conquest with a loyal citizens, who support their despot because the guy knows how to take care of his PR image and how not too oppress people.

The bad: there are major disprepancies with regard to established and official time lines. In other words, its history section is to be treated as an attempt to falsify history by Calastian historians.

The ugly: none. Justin Achilli wrote an excellent, if a little bland supplement. Also, I'm a bit of a crunch guy, and I would really like skip information on some story seeds in favor of a detailed locale or a short writeup of an organization (complete with statblocks).

7/10.



Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Teflon Billy]

I quite liked Most of the setting product produced for Scarred Lands (Burok-Torn, Shelzar, Hornsaw, Mithril and, or course, Hollowfaust are the top guns on the list.

I sort of lost track of the product line after they started releasing Splatbooks...was there ever a supplement detailing Vesh?

 

[Trickstergod]

Nah, there never was any book out on Vesh, beyond the write-up for the Vigilants in Secret's and Societies, really.

As for my book recommendations, I'm a strong proponent of the Divine and the Defeated. It's really the heart of the setting, in my opinion. It details the most important parts of the Scarred Lands - the gods and the titans. It's also the only significant source you'll find on some of the demigods, such as Nemorga (patron of Hollowfaust), Goran (patron of Burok Torn) and Nalthalos (patron of Dier Drendal and the dark elves).

It does have stats for the gods that aren't particularly mechanically sound (CR alone, the higher CR Corean gets absolutely pummeled by the vastly lower CR Vangal), but those aren't the meat and bones of it, anyway. It goes into the settings history and gives an overview of a number of the gods and titans sects, religious beliefs, place in the pantheon, etc, etc. It's nifty.

 

[Psion]

I looked into my local gaming store today, and they actually had this. What's so good about it?

Well, I liked the idea of a twisted, corrupted forest and inhabitants that are grappling to deal with it.

And they also had the book about Calastia. What's your opinion on this one?

It had possibilities if you wanted to run a political game, and had a few bound up secretes that you could use for plot devices, but that said, it struck me as dull.

 

[Voadam]

I'll have to go against the current on Hallowfaust.

It had problems with mechanics and flavor text such as a prestige class requiring speak with dead then saying things like "only a few rogues enter this class".

It had editing problems such as a whole column of text displaced, a feat thrown in a dozen pages out of context after the guy who developed and teaches it, etc.

Reading it straight through it had narrative problems, continually referring to new concepts, groups, and people that had not yet been introduced.

And flavor wise the intense amount of time the necromancers put into running everything down to multi-necromancer panels for every legal dispute involving more than 100 gp and their mastery of efficient enlightened governmental rulership seemed completely contrary to a bunch of necromancers whose whole goal was to live apart from people and study in seclusion.

It had a lot of neat aspects and seems a fun place to adventure, but it had a number of problems that lessened my enjoyment of the product.

I had seen neutral necromancers using only animated dead for the good of society before in the 2e setting Jakandor so even the stereotype defying aspects of the setting were not that huge a deal for me.